Threat analysis and monitoring

What is it?

  • Detailed and up-to-date assessments of defined threats, risks and trends.

Why is it important?

  • Children face a range of individual and combined threats and risks[1], including those relating to sexual exploitation and abuse, when interacting online. The threats and risks can manifest online and offline and come from a range of actors and settings. Systematic and coordinated identification, monitoring, management and mitigation of all threats and risks is crucial to strengthening the safeguarding of children online and offline and to reducing the possibility of unintended (or intended) harms coming to life.
  • Threat analysis and management and risk management are standard good practice in (offline) project management and operations. Therefore, all actors planning, delivering, supporting, strengthening and advocating to change a specific online or digital project should also uphold their responsibility to identify and manage the associated threats and risks.

How can it be implemented?

  • Targeted research projects (long-term / 5+ years or longitudinal where possible) with a baseline and pre-set, relevant and appropriate indicators, and both qualitative and quantitative research tools, should be established to monitor and analyse threats, risks as well as the opportunities for different groups of children.
  • Where possible, and not in contravention of confidentiality or privacy legislation, intersectional analysis should be integrated into the research. This is key to being able to design effective programmes that actually prevent and respond to the identified threats and risks.
  • Input from different groups of children and stakeholders with varied expertise (e.g. technology engineers, criminal justice staff, and child protection professionals) across organisations, sectors and countries will strengthen the research quality.

Further resources:

[1] Risk is defined here as a chance or possibility that an individual will be harmed.